


Between Hanging On and Letting Go

by Ragga



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brotherly Love, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Ghosts, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Supernatural Elements, Warring States Period (Naruto)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22753921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ragga/pseuds/Ragga
Summary: When people die, they become ghosts and attach themselves to the person who made the biggest impact on their life. The person cannot be chosen beforehand, is up to the whims of fate, and Izuna would like to lodge a complaint, please and thank you.Or, Izuna dies and comes back to haunt Tobirama. Shenanigans ensue.
Relationships: Senju Itama & Senju Tobirama, Senju Itama & Uchiha Izuna, Senju Tobirama & Uchiha Izuna, Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Comments: 117
Kudos: 662
Collections: Naruto Fanfics





	1. Izuna's no good, very bad day

**Author's Note:**

> My mantra of not starting another WIP before finishing the ongoing one was not successful. 2020 has betrayed me. Share my pain. Also, I love writing Izuna's POV, dammit.

The wind surging past Izuna’s ears was the only thing he heard when he rushed away from what in hindsight was an obvious ambush. Still, the mission to assassinate a minor lord who had lost the Daimyo’s favour had been too lucrative an opportunity for them to lose just because there had been few details; it was why Madara had dispatched Izuna with Mika as his backup, two of the Uchiha’s highest skilled shinobi. Ordinarily they may have gone with others but, considering it was winter, the skirmishes between the Uchiha and the Senju had grown fewer as well as with the other clans they were not allied with. For once they had been able to send some of their most powerful away and this, the money they could have gained from this mission, could have tied them over for a long while, perhaps even—

Izuna dodged left when twin shurikens landed just a fraction of a second too late at where he had just been. The branch shattered upon impact and only luck made it so he didn’t get hit by any rogue splinters. He glanced to his right and saw Mika’s forehead glisten with sweat. She was panting hard and there were cuts bleeding through her clothing where her armour didn’t reach to protect her. He had no doubt he made a similar vision.

Together they had managed to kill over a dozen shinobi but to no avail; their enemy had never faltered even when their comrades had fallen right in front of them. Izuna had never seen anyone like them, people with this strange ability to form weapons out of their own bodies and bones. Even that stupid tree man’s ability wasn’t as freaky as that nor his freak of a brother’s inventions that more often than not tried to bite Izuna in the ass. He would rather fight _both_ of them at once than any of those bone men ever again and that was saying something. Izuna _loathed_ the Senju, especially one in particular. Unfortunately now he had found out people he hated _even_ _more_ and he hadn’t thought that was even _possible_.

Mika yelped and he heard a crash just behind him. He quickly turned around, only to see a pristine white blade of bone stabbing through her leg and impaling her to the tree. Izuna’s hands flew into motion and he spit the biggest ball of fire he could muster straight into that creepily grinning man’s face. The man screamed in pain, the fire burning black in its intensity, and fell down with a loud thud, no doubt attracting others to their position. Izuna scrambled to Mika’s side, lifted her onto his back because he would need his hands to defend them, and took off away from the scene as quick as his feet could take them.

“Leave me,” Mika ordered quietly, her voice without any hint of the pain she had to be in.

Izuna grit his teeth together even as his legs screamed from the extra weight. They needed safety, needed to find a place where _they_ couldn’t be found. If only he knew which directions the bone men were coming from. There were moments he wished he had also gotten their grandmother’s gift of sensing instead of just Madara and this was one of them. “No way,” he said, eyes flicking around to spot any new ambushes. He had learned after the second unsuccessful one. “Kagami will kill me if I get his mother killed.”

“Kagami is a child of a shinobi,” she hissed. “He knows the danger.”

“Then _I_ will kill myself if I let you get killed in front of me.” Izuna made a decision to hop to their left and run a little towards the west. They were close enough to the Senju territory and that just might be their salvation as much as it left a sour taste in Izuna’s mouth. Not just because he would rather run through their lands if it meant getting home sooner, but because if the tree man was still just as fond of Madara as he seemed, he might let them pass through without much trouble. Izuna was willing to take that risk, even if it was equally likely to meet with the White Demon instead with his _stupid_ sensing abilities. Fuck him and fuck Madara and _all_ sensors to _hell_.

“This will get you killed!” Mika snapped. “I’m just dead weight. Let me down and I can distract them long enough to—”

“Shut up!” Izuna snarled back. “Just _shut_ _up_ and keep an eye on our backs and—”

The branch underneath them exploded and threw them onto the ground. Izuna managed to land on his feet but his grip on Mika loosened enough that he had to drop her to the forest floor. He immediately pressed his back to hers, weapons ready in his hands.

They were surrounded.

Fuck.

“You stupid idiot,” Mika murmured viciously and pushed to line their spines so there was no space for even ninja wire between them. Izuna didn’t answer. He kept looking for a way out, any gap in the defence, but there was none he could spot. They were well and truly surrounded.

Shit. They had run across half the country and were less than a few hours away from their own territory. It could not end like that. Izuna would not let it. They were making it home, he would _not_ leave Kagami as one of the many orphans, he would _not_ leave Madara with a mere ghost of a brother—

He bared his teeth and beckoned the bone men to come forward. Their white hair kept freaking him out; if not for their eyes being every other shade than red, he would have thought they were kin to the White Demon but, no, even his archenemy wouldn’t stoop this low. Anyone could say what they wanted about them but at least neither clan favoured ambushes. Opportunities when met with a lower-skilled group were used accordingly but actually assaulting with half a clan’s worth of shinobi against only two? Even Izuna knew that was uncharacteristic of the Senju and _he_ was the sense to Madara’s hopeless clinginess to dreams from over a decade ago.

But not… these people.

Seconds ticked by and the tension was forcing Izuna’s senses into overdrive. His grip on his weapons tightened until his knuckles shone white. If only he could—but no, he had no kunai to waste anymore, having used most of them during the chase to pick off their enemies one by one. However, if the opportunity struck, he would—

A swish of air was the only warning he got before he heard the pained whine from Mika and felt her drop to the ground with a wet thud. Without even looking Izuna knew she was soon dead if not already.

Shit. Fuck. _Shit_.

He threw himself forward to meet with another bone man—or a woman—and cut through her artery before she could defend herself. He pushed past her as nimbly as an exhausted shinobi could, having ran for two days straight and now only going by fumes, and it was only the sick desperation to reach the _Senju_ territory that gave him strength to flee. He dodged a kunai and a blade made from bone, deflected another two blows with skill he had learned from having to one-up that _stupid_ lightning quick Senju, only to find two of those crazies in front of him. His knees locked at the worst possible moment, causing him to barely avoid the one on the left but leaving him open for the other one, getting stabbed straight into the gut in the process.

Izuna sucked in a pained breath and blood welled in his throat. The wet slide of the blade—not made of bone, he absently noticed—forced Izuna on his knees as there was no longer anything holding him up, the last of his strength escaping him. His kunai fell on the forest floor with him.

“How’s the other one?” one of the two called out, kicking the legs from under Izuna so he fell all the way to the ground. His spine hit a rock on the impact and forced a groan from him.

“Barely alive but nothing the cocoon won’t fix. She’ll make a fine soldier even if she doesn’t seem to have the evolved form, just the regular reds. What about yours?”

Izuna’s hair was painfully yanked and his neck was bared when his eyelids were forcefully pulled open. “This one has them. He also has the main house symbol stitched inside his shirt collar. Lucky!” Izuna spat blood at him, staining the man’s cheek, and got backhanded for his effort.

“Just make sure he doesn’t die. We’ve all heard how close the leftovers are.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

A third voice joined in, pointing out, “With him out of the picture, only the clan head is left. He’s the one Zetsu wanted, isn’t he?”

Izuna lied on the ground, head swaying and guts quietly bleeding out. Every inch of his body hurt. He had been let go of as unimportant, an afterthought, as the bone men discussed Madara, _using_ Madara, to do whatever sinister plan they and their maybe-leader had hatched. At least he had a guarantee that Mika was, and will be kept, alive, whatever that cocoon meant. But it also meant that Izuna could not afford to stay and bide his time unless he wanted to share her fate; or worse, lose his eyes. He had to get out of here, to warn Madara, to get Kagami’s mother back to him, but he also knew that there was no way he could both defeat all of them and make it home.

Izuna bit his lip and flexed his fingers where they lingered next to his last kunai. He curled then around the handle loosely.

There was only one way out then, he thought, strengthening his resolve and biting his teeth together to keep himself from shaking. He felt suddenly so very cold. Izuna hated what it would do to his brother but at least he wouldn’t be completely alone. There was some comfort in that.

His grip on the kunai tightened.

Madara would know of the threat to the Uchiha and deal with it accordingly. Izuna would be avenged, Mika would be saved, and fire and terror would be rained upon those that had wronged them. Izuna would make sure of it.

He grinned madly, teeth painted with the same shade of red that had recorded every painful moment of his journey and left dark tracks over his cheeks. He deactivated his sharingan, forcing it down despite the storm inside him and rendering his eyes useless for anyone who wasn’t an Uchiha, and the moment the bone men’s attention slipped he drove his kunai straight into his very own heart.

He choked once, twice, and then all he saw was darkness.

***

Izuna opened his eyes and immediately scanned his surroundings in the fading daylight. He could see no bone men, he was not tied down nor did he feel any pain—he could imitate breathing but felt no air enter his lungs—so he knew he was dead. His plan had worked, even if he was still rather bitter that it had been necessary. But considering the fact that he _had_ been able to wake up, even as a ghost, it meant that Madara was still all right. He exhaled in relief. He had always known that Madara would never let him down.

Yet, as he scanned the room from where he was sitting, he could see nothing that looked familiar. This was neither Madara’s bedroom nor office nor did it look like it belonged to the Uchiha compound either. There was a desk but it was not shaped the same as Madara’s or was it made from the same dark wood as his. There was a closet, doors held slightly open, but the shelves were almost bare of any clothing as if the owner did not care for ceremony. No decorations littered the walls and instead of the stitched uchiwas in the fabrics and shades of blue and purple, he was surrounded with greens and browns with mere hints of blues and reds and other colours as if whoever had done the decorating had just gone with their lack of any true vision, with just the feel of things, instead of following their sense. He could see nothing and no one that seemed familiar.

Izuna swallowed his nervousness and forced down the feeling of cold, its wintry bite colder than the steel that had gone through him.

Where was he?

His question was quickly answered though when he heard voices from the other side of the room and noticed a man appear from behind a bookcase he had paid no attention to. Izuna met the red eyes he swore he had never seen as wide as they were now when they took him in. The happuri was gone and the hair, even if still as spiky as usual, now also fell on his face, softening the sharp features that Izuna was unfortunately very familiar with. The little drop of the jaw would have been funny if not for the situation Izuna had landed in.

“No way,” Izuna said, whispered, denial bleeding into his very being. “You have got to be shitting me.”

Senju Tobirama said nothing as he stared back. A see-through boy with faded two-toned hair poked his head around, glancing between the White Demon and Izuna, before he gave Izuna an uncertain little wave.

Shit. Shit shit shit. _Fuck_.

How would he get his message to Madara _now_?


	2. Denial is the First Stage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those that don't follow my other story, my March is packed so we'll see about how well I can update. I did manage to finish this one, so yay for that :) I also find that I love writing Izuna even more now.
> 
> EDIT: sorry for double posting, something went badly wrong at first.

“There is no _fucking_ way you are the most important person in my life!” Izuna yelled, pointing at the Senju. “What did you do? Why am I not with Madara? Why am I here? I didn’t kill myself to end up with the Senju! I didn’t even get to die in your accursed territory! I have places to _be_!”

Izuna waved his arm and it accidentally flew through a stack of books, not knocking a single scroll laying on them to the floor. Shit. He was dead and bound to Senju _fucking_ Tobirama. This was _not_ going to be his life. Death. Life after death. _Fuck_.

The White Demon blinked slowly, having picked his jaw at some point during Izuna’s initial panicked flail. “It’s not about importance,” he said and, although he was explaining it to Izuna like an infant, the shock bled all condescension out of it. “Only impact. Growth as a person.”

Before Izuna could explode further, the kid moved from behind the Senju into Izuna’s line of sight. “Isn’t he your usual foe on the battlefield?” he asked, tilting his head. It looked ridiculous with his half-straight and half-spiky hairdo, the former flopping down while the latter stuck towards the ceiling. “I think I recognise the ponytail.”

“Uchiha Izuna,” the Senju agreed. “Madara’s younger brother.”

“Oh.” The boy frowned and shifted on his feet. He worried his lower lip for a moment before saying softly, “His brother is going to be very sad.”

“ _My_ brother is going to be _furious_ when he realises you’ve interfered with him and I!” Izuna bit out. He took one step towards them, shoulders pulled forward. “I need you to stop with whatever you did and _let me go to Madara_!”

“Tobi-nii did nothing to you!” the kid yelled back, the previous gentleness wiped like the act Izuna had known it was. Izuna instinctually attempted to fill his eyes with chakra, to feel the familiar pulse, but could find nothing to connect to, his sharingan staying black forevermore. “It’s not like we wanted an Uchiha here either!”

So the kid with the strange hair was the Demon’s brother. Why was Izuna not surprised? The bastard’s whole family was so fuck awful and weird that this didn’t even top the sky-high cake. “There’s no way I would be bound to you,” he said bluntly. “ _Madara_ has always been the biggest influence in my life. I don’t even know why I am arguing with you, I am just going to take my leave and leave you two fuckwads here to steam in whatever failed plan you concocted.” He defiantly turned his back at them and stomped towards the slightly ajar door. He would find his way out of here and then to Madara. It would only be a few hours’ run if he didn’t stop for breaks. “I should have known you were somehow behind it all, no wonder everything was so messed up, like everything always is with you bastards—”

“You can’t leave.”

Izuna paused at the door and craned his neck to send his most pleasant smile at the Demon who looked both surprised and sour to have spoken up. “What did you just say?” he said, straining not to jump and strangle the bastard.

“You can’t leave,” the kid echoed. “The distance you can go to is four miles and three quarters. We’ve tested it.”

Izuna felt himself start to tremble but forced his hands to stay steady. “No,” he denied, shaking his head. “You are trying to lie to me, to keep me here. I—no, _no_ , I don’t believe you!”

He didn’t stay to listen to the kid’s yells after him nor the bastard’s low rumbles and ran in the door that led him to a corridor of sort. He took a sharp turn left and rushed past the same questionable décor that had been prevalent in the Demon’s room. The window on the floor was open, leading outside, and Izuna jumped through it. He couldn’t feel the breeze against his cheek as he ran past what looked like a part of the newer warriors the Senju had sent to the field. They were laughing, neither noticing Izuna. It sent shivers down his back, the feeling of sweat should have appeared on his temple but did not leaving him cold.

He saw more and more of familiar faces his sharingan had recorded, the information still present even if he could not activate his bloodline limit anymore. The shithead that had killed Tomoyo, the one that Hikaku most often clashed with, the idiot who had stumbled on his own sword and somehow managed to stay alive despite it—they were all there. All the people Izuna hated and more.

The women who would give birth to more soldiers. The kids that would grow to threaten Izuna’s clan. The elderly who had killed more Uchiha than Izuna could guess.

He hated them. He hated them. _He hated them_.

Izuna climbed a tree and jumped on the roofs to avoid seeing the faces of his enemy. He pushed to his limits, legs stretching and, after a moment of being suspended in the air, he landed on the walls and then he was past the confines of the Senju compound, past the guards and patrolling shinobi, and the rest of the fiends that made his life a misery. Whatever the Senju had done, that the Demon had done, Izuna would escape it. He wouldn’t let them be the reason Madara’s heart broke, wouldn’t let them _use_ him to cause any more pain for him. Madara deserved more than that, _better_ than that, and he—Izuna wouldn’t—

This was already going to be difficult for his brother but there was no reason to make it even worse. He jumped over the fallen log on his path, the rustling of grass changing into unnaturally tall trees. They were thick, even more so than the ones in the Uchiha land. They had to be the tree fucker’s work; only he would twist what should be a regular forest into… _this_.

He glanced back. He could no longer see the Senju compound. He automatically avoided a tree, jumping on a low-hanging branch and then up into the ones higher from the ground. The sun was setting, giving him an estimate of in which direction his home was, and he corrected his route, pushing more speed from the trunk of another monstrous trunk. And then—

Then he hit what seemed like a wall and fell down on the ground into a graceless heap. He groaned although the pain he had expected didn’t register. He rolled onto his feet, pushing his shoulders back, and took another leap—

Only to hit the wall again. And again. And again.

And again.

Izuna hammered the air with his fists, yelling into the dark forest where birds kept singing as if unable to realise the severity of the situation. He kicked, he raged, he hit the invisible wall, but it didn’t budge. Something tugged at his navel and dragged him to the ground on his back. He rolled back up, hands rolled into fists and he slammed one down on the forest floor.

“Why can’t I leave?” Izuna whispered, desperate, eyes burning with the need to cry but nothing would come out. The darkness spread the lower the sun got, leaving only traces of rays behind for the moon to take over.

“Because brother stayed behind.”

Izuna’s head whipped around. The weird-haired kid from earlier stood there, loose and unstylish clothes and all. There was an unnatural shine to him and his translucent body now, as if he both was and wasn’t completely there. Izuna glanced at his feet when he scrambled up again, noticing the same glimmer to his own limbs, more noticeable in the shade than in direct sunlight.

No. No, no no no no _no_ —

“What did you do to me?” he said and he hated the weakness that snuck into his tone. The boy didn’t look away from him, mouth a drawn line, when he shook his head slowly.

“Nothing,” he said. The pity in that one word dug deep into Izuna’s soul and he _itched_ to throw a kunai at the kid, to yell at him to just _stop_. “No one can decide who they attach themselves to when they die.”

“And how do you know?” Izuna demanded. “Have you ever tried?”

The boy bowed his head an inch. “It’s why mother never appeared to any one of us,” he said quietly. A memory flashed in Izuna’s mind, a quiet question of why everyone else could remember the black-haired woman when he didn’t, why he only had pictures and no words to recall. He narrowed his eyes and buried the thought deeper, somewhere where it could no longer hurt him.

“Well, I am not surprised she never appeared to _you_ ,” Izuna spat. “It’s not like there’s much to love, is there?”

The kid’s head snapped back up. “You take that back!” he yelled.

“What, did that hit a nerve?” The little voice that sounded suspiciously like Hikaku told Izuna that he was only throwing his growing panic and fear-induced anger onto someone else’s shoulders, but he told it to shove it. These two, the Demon and his brother, did this to him. They were keeping him from Madara, they had to, because Izuna would _never_ betray Madara like this, he was the only one he could unconditionally trust and rely on, and if Izuna—if he—

There was no way. He couldn’t. He _wouldn’t_. He would make it back to Madara even if it killed him, killed him again, and again, and again—

“You were all so impossible to love, weren’t you?” he continued the taunting. “What with the one who has always been more a tree than human and the demon who is so cold I doubt he even knows what love is—”

“Stop it!”

“—or you who no one even knows about! Forgotten, aren’t you? No one to care about you, no one to care _about_ —"

“And what about you?” the boy interrupted, glaring daggers at Izuna. He lifted his chin, something ugly rising on his face. Izuna barely had time to realise the change when the kid bit out, “You, who would rather deny the reality that there was someone who was more impactful to his _own life_ than his _own brother_.” The mirthless smile cut deep, but not as deep as the next words. “At least _I_ came back for _my_ family rather than the _enemy_.”

Before he could feel his body move Izuna threw a punch at the boy who stumbled to the ground by the force of the impact. He blinked rapidly, staring at Izuna, and then muttered, “So ghosts _can_ touch each other. Brother can tick that off the list then.”

Izuna let out a yell and threw himself on the kid, sending punch after punch at him. The kid didn’t even bother to move, just laid there and took what Izuna gave him. After what felt like an eternity Izuna leaned back, knowing he should be panting but unable to feel any exertion. The kid underneath him looked just as unruffled as before, not a hair askew over his head.

“Are you done now?” he asked. Izuna grit his teeth and stood up abruptly, stalking a few steps more towards the Uchiha compound but again being thwarted by the invisible wall. He let out a scream, filling it with all his rage at the impossibility of the situation, and then fell on his knees. His head thumped against the air, hands attempting to grab at something that was not solid but could not be gone through. He was pulled at again, a little to the left, but the feeling abated quickly.

The boy sighed. Izuna heard his stand up but he didn’t turn around to see. “Brother can’t stay in his room for the whole evening, not when Hashi-nii is home for dinner. It would be better if we went back before you are being dragged around by the navel like you have a leash on you. It’s not a pleasant feeling.”

“I’m not going back there,” Izuna said. He heard a wolf howl in the distance, the mournful sound vibrating along with his soul. “I need to get to Madara.”

The boy was quiet for a moment before Izuna heard his steps—a strange, deliberate noise when there should be none—before the kid slumped next to him on the ground. He hugged his knees to him and stared into the darkness with Izuna.

“Even if you did,” he said softly. “He wouldn’t be able to see you. You would just follow him around like a shadow; no, not even that, because shadows can be seen. You are just air to him, to everyone you once knew and loved, who you still love and who you just spoke to that morning, last week, whenever. It’s like you never existed… and that hurts more than anything.”

Izuna couldn’t help looking at the kid’s direction but the boy didn’t turn his head to meet his gaze. He resolutely stared ahead, eyes following the rabbit that hopped in the underbrush. He looked pained, sad, and much older than his stature suggested.

“How old—?” Izuna started before he caught himself. He whipped his head around, the flush that wasn’t a flush, merely a memory of the feeling mimicking life, creeping to his cheeks.

“I was eight.” The boy sighed. “I’ve been dead for over a decade by now.”

“That’s—” Izuna shook his head, words escaping him. “Awful.”

The boy leaned back and faced the sky partly hidden by the thick canopy. “My brother found me, you know. I woke up to Tobi-nii clutching my body and crying, the corpses of my killers around us. When he noticed me, he tried to hug me like he used to, but he just went through me. And then he cried more. And I couldn’t.” This time their eyes met and Izuna couldn’t look away.

“I saw Hashi-nii when Tobi-nii carried my body back and he couldn’t see me. I saw my father, but he couldn’t find me. I saw each and every person in my family, but none of them could see me except for Tobi-nii. It… hurts. They grieved and then they moved on like I wasn’t there. But I was. They know, of course, because Tobi-nii told them, but they forget because they can’t see me. Even Hashi-nii sometimes forgets and other times he speaks to Tobi-nii when he tries to say something to me, as if Tobi-nii isn’t there, then I’m not either.”

His smile was sombre and then he turned back to the rabbit that was now munching grass between his feet. It would have spooked a long time ago if they were visible, if they had been able to see it at all. “We don’t know why you are here, you know, Tobi-nii and I. It’s not like we would wish this on you or anyone. But I would take this pain a thousand-fold if it meant I could stay with Tobi-nii and not anyone else. It’s the same with you, isn’t it?”

“I just want Madara,” he blurted and the thickness of his voice surprised him. Even if he couldn’t produce tears anymore, couldn’t sniff or anything, he still had the other effects. He didn’t know why it was, if it was because he was mimicking it himself or if being a gh—

Something lurched in his chest.

He was dead and he was stuck. Madara would never know what happened to him. He would be lost forever in the enemy territory until someone, probably someone from his clan—Madara, it had to be Madara, because no one else could rival the bastard now that Izuna was dead—offed the White Demon and thus finished what the weird bone men had started. He wouldn’t—shit. Who the fuck even was—

“—Zetsu?” he mumbled to himself. There was a brief pause in the air, a strange suspension that couldn’t be named, before he was abruptly grabbed and he flailed a bit attempting to catch his balance. He came to find the boy staring at him, somehow managing to pale further despite his already ghostly countenance.

“ _How do you know that name?_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :D


	3. Welcome to the team

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hi! It's been a bit. The corona virus only increased my workload and I had also foolishly participated in a fic exchange which also ate my time as it just _would not work_. I probably wrote more than 20k before it finally finished at 8k. You can see here how many times I had to rewrite it.
> 
> However, I am hoping to get my groove back for the WIPs I have. Fingers crossed and I hope you enjoy!

Izuna found himself dragged back towards the accursed Senju compound. The kid—Itama, he supposed he should really start calling him by his name since they were going to be stuck together for the foreseeable future—was surprisingly strong for having died as, well, a kid. Not that Izuna hadn’t gone off to missions at that age too… Perhaps he just had been luckier than him. He tried imagining Madara as the only child for over a decade. The thought sent shivers down his back.

“Tobi-nii!” Itama yelled the moment they stepped inside the Senju main house. “Tobi-nii!”

The White Demon poked his head from what appeared to be the kitchen. “Itama, what is it?” he asked, eyes sliding to Izuna before dismissing him in favour of his brother now that they had reached him. Izuna would have found it insulting had he not been just as confused. Itama had not even wasted a second to explain his reaction to him, just dragged him back like a sad sack of rice.

…Now _that_ was an insulting thought.

“Zetsu is back!”

Those red eyes that had no business being so close to the shade Izuna would never again wear immediately narrowed down. “What?” he snapped, straightening up. “Where?”

Itama turned back to Izuna instantly, expectation clearly written on his face. Izuna blinked. “I—he—”

“You mean—?” the Demon glanced at Izuna again and then clearly thought better, closing his mouth with nary a sound. Not a moment after Izuna saw movement from behind him and saw Madara’s former ‘friend’ looking at them. Well, at the Demon.

“Tobirama?” the stupid tree man piped up. “Did something happen?”

Izuna could see the split-second decision on the Demon’s face. “Itama checked on my experiments and found one of them looking, in his words, odd. Sorry, I need to make sure nothing happens.”

“Ah,” was the intelligent reply he got in return. “I will clean up after myself then. But don’t take too long! You need to finish your dinner. You barely had time to touch it.”

Itama crossed his arms and nodded along, as if to tell he was going to make sure of that. The Demon let out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, brother.”

Although Izuna wasn’t certain which brother he had replied to, the tree man then smiled brightly and replied, “Good. Take care! Don’t have too much fun!”

“I’m off,” the Demon only said and bounced. He was quick, just as quick as Izuna remembered him to be, and found himself being dragged for the second time within the hour. He was escorted to a small house at the edge of the main house, close enough so that people would know it belonged within the property but far enough that any disturbance that was caused there would not disrupt anyone’s day. As they went past the porch, Izuna could see a warning not to enter, but nothing more—until the Demon touched a nearby tree and a seal flared to life briefly. He flitted past the wards Izuna now knew to look for, intricate and so well-hidden that had the Demon not disabled them with his chakra Izuna might not have even noticed there were any. The moment the Demon made it past them he touched one more seal by the door, perfectly inconspicuous within the curling decorations, and they were once more activated.

…Huh.

Izuna hadn’t known that the negotiations between the Senju and the Uzumaki had gone that far yet, for them to exchange knowledge on their techniques. The Uzumaki were not particularly receptive of sharing their seals. Izuna had heard of the tales of those who had tried to force the issue. It had not end well for them.

The house was… little more than a storage, really. Few pieces of furniture aside, there were all these strange books in languages Izuna did not know, symbols he could not recognise and plenty of other equipment that he just could not figure out their purpose of. As with any storage, there was a trapdoor to the basement where there were probably even more of the same—or something more dangerous, considering the lie he spat out that was not questioned for a second—but the Demon did not bother taking them there. Instead, he turned around immediately as the front door slammed shut, facing Izuna and Itama where they stood.

“Are you sure Zetsu is back?” he asked then and, although his tone suggested urgency was key, there was less snap to his words than before. Izuna knew he had skills as a sensor—the way they had fought on the battlefield attested to it, the way he could fight just as well in the midst of steam caused by katon and suiton cancelling each other out, when usually the sharingan had the edge—so he must have spread his senses. Izuna quietly wondered if they were anything like Madara’s, enough to sense trouble miles away.

Itama crossed his arms, making for a very petulant picture. It was probably more to his stature than feelings of the moment, since he said, “I haven’t seen him. But Izuna here mentioned his name, so he must have.”

The Demon slid his eyes on Izuna, meeting his eyes without fear, and Izuna bristled. If Izuna was alive, there was no way the Demon would have dared to do so; he must think Izuna was no longer a threat, ghost as he was, and—how _dare_ he imply—

“Where did you meet him?” the Demon asked, frowning. “Did he kill you?”

Izuna froze for a second before his tempter took a hold of him. _He dared to_ —

He didn’t have time to explode, though, when Itama piped up with a scold of his own. “ _Nii-san_.”

The Senju Demon… _winced_ , looking almost chastised. After a glance sent at Itama, his whole attention was soon back on Izuna. “I apologise,” he said stiffly. “That was… insensitive of me. Can you tell us where you last saw him?”

Izuna couldn’t help it. He gaped. Unable to answer, he looked at the kid next to him who merely looked back at him expectantly.

“He—I don’t know who he is,” Izuna said finally, the flare of his tempter now lost in the sea of confusion. “The people who were there when I died mentioned his name and—” And— _Madara_. “They are going after Madara,” he added hurriedly, the fear and anxiety from earlier returning. The world seemed to slow for him for an instant, almost like when his sharingan was active, and he feel his uselessness. If there was any truth to Itama’s words—and there had to be, for Izuna had seen no other ghost that had to linger around and then there was the wall—there was no way Izuna could send a message to Madara himself nor do it himself. He—he would have to—

And screw his pride, screw _everything_.

“Please,” he said, gritting his teeth and forcing his neck into a bow that felt heavy with the humiliation. “I know you have no reason to trust me nor do anything I ask but, please, send a word to my brother. He needs to know.”

He was met with silence. Izuna clenched his jaw, refusing to look up. Itama shifted next to him but he would not look at him either. This was between him and—

“Of course,” the Demon said. Izuna’s head snapped back up and was met with a look of surprise that he was certain was reflected on his own. “I—yes, naturally. We will.”

“That easily?” he demanded. Because there was no way it was this easy. “What do you want?”

“Want?”

“In return,” Izuna spat out. The Demon had the gall to _blink_.

“I do not think there is anything you could give me that I would need.”

Izuna blanked and then he erupted. He cursed the Demon out, cursed the little brat that was next to them, cursed Zetsu, cursed every single one of the bonemen to the deepest of hells, cursed—

When he finally quieted down, he was vaguely aware that had he had breath, he would be panting right then and there. While he had been focused on swearing up a storm, the Demon had spread out a map from wherever over the table there and had started tapping his finger on it.

“Are you done?” Izuna was asked when he met the expectant look. There was a slight tint of amusement there, but mostly impatience. “We can’t stop whatever Zetsu is trying if we don’t know what his next move will be.”

Izuna bit his lip, rolled his shoulders, and stomped over to the table. He scanned the map, mentally retracing all the twists and turns Mika and he can done while trying to escape their enemy. They had started from the northeast, then doubled back, gone west, south—

“There,” he finally said, drawing a circle on the area on the northwest side of the Senju land. “I killed myself there. Mika and I attempted to cut through your territory to reach ours.”

Tobirama twitched. His jaw worked, hiding the question that he clearly wanted to ask but did not due to its insensitive nature. A dark smile curled on Izuna’s face. “I tried to get home to Madara before they could make off with Mika. She was still alive the last time I saw.” He then drew the approximate line of the travel they had done. “They were waiting for us. Somewhere around the midpoint more of them arrived to chase us, new faces replacing the old. Either they had reinforcements waiting and had been luring us in that direction all along—which I doubt, due to the twisted path we took where we almost lost them more than once—or…”

“They have a lair there,” Itama muttered, scanning the map. “Add it to the list, Tobi-nii.”

Tobirama did, marking the area with a light circle, before going back to make a new set of lines and coils indicating Izuna’s travel. Izuna noted there were some crossed out spots on the map too, some circled, some not, some with dashed lines or other types of markings. There were clearly some rules to it that Izuna was not privy to. Yet.

The brush was placed on the table and then Tobirama took off, scowling at the bookcases that lined the walls and then hopped through the opened trapdoor. Izuna tilted his head. Maybe—

He glanced at Itama and found him smiling at him knowingly. “I doubt Tobi-nii would mind,” he said. “Too much anyway. It’s not like you can break anything.”

“Break!” Izuna huffed. “Break! Is that all you think I am good for?”

“It’s the only thing Hashi-nii is good for!” Itama laughed. “Part of the reason this area is so well warded is so that he can’t enter. You have probably seen there is not one plant here either; they always act up whenever his moods are swinging.”

“Worse than usual, he means,” Tobirama added when he returned. He had a scroll in his hand, carefully tied with a purple ribbon. “We need more intel on their moves. Itama, go spy on the clan; we need a legitimate reason to go past the Senju land and Touka covered the missions this week. If nothing else, we need to inspect the area Izuna… died at.” Tobirama refused to glance in Izuna’s direction but there was it again, the strange twitch.

Itama hummed, crossing his legs as he floated at level with Izuna’s chest. Izuna couldn’t help but wonder how he was doing so. Discreetly he tried to hover on the ground, just an inch or two, but his feet remained stuck to the wooden floor. “They will have cleaned it up, you know,” Itama pointed out.

Tobirama’s rebuttal was swift. “And you know just as well they can’t make everything disappear.”

“True.” Itama stared at the ceiling for a minute. “Hanako was talking about Eiji coming down with a cold. He was scheduled for a patrol if I remember correctly.”

“Good enough if there’s nothing else.” Tobirama pulled the scroll he held open, placing it over the left side of the table. He moved lightly touched each small seal on the corners and it stuck open as if it had never been rolled before. “I would prefer a night out if possible.”

“I’ll go see about it.” Itama turned to Izuna, asking, “Do you want to come with me?”

Izuna glanced between them, slightly confused with the ease they went along with him and the situation, as if they had been doing this for years.

“You can stay if you want,” Tobirama said then though his eyes were glued on the table. “As Itama said, you are welcome to inspect my experiments below too; it’s not like you can harm them. But Itama could give you a tour of the compound at the same time too.”

“What about the message?” Izuna blurted out. Tobirama paused in his movements before lifting his gaze from where he was comparing the scroll and the map, brush again picked up on one hand.

“When the night falls, we’ll go and take one of the skipping stones my brother and yours used; the sap has been saving them as if they were jewels. Madara may entertain a meeting if he thinks it will be with Hashirama.”

“Meeting?” Itama straightened from his float. “No one ever said anything about a meeting. You will not endanger yourself—!”

“This news,” Tobirama raised his voice, calm and steady, “should not be given through a letter. It is easy to misunderstand and we do not know what he has been already told if anything. This way we can avoid much of that. If more than just him are coming, I will take my leave and leave behind a message.” He raised his brows at Itama. “I hope you did not forget my skills as a sensor.”

“Even those can be fooled,” Itama muttered but sighed, shoulders dropping. He shook his head. “I know a lost battle when I see one.”

Tobirama then did something Izuna did not expect. He raised his hand, beckoning Itama closer, and, when he did, mimicked tussling his hair. “Good. I did not raise a fool.” A silvery shine flickered on Itama’s cheeks but there was a smile there as well. “Now, you have your mission.”

“Yes, yes,” Itama said. He leaned back again and his feet touched the ground again. He tilted his head at Izuna. “You coming? When Tobi-nii is finished crosschecking what we know, he'll share his findings.”

Weirded out by this new human version of his battlefield nemesis, Izuna couldn’t do anything else but nod. He followed Itama out with just one glance sent at Tobirama who was already back to frowning at the scrolls on the table.

“How does he get them to stick?” Izuna asked. When Itama just looked at him, he clarified, “The paper. I know he uses seals but I haven’t seen any like them before.” More than that, he had rarely seen any but those modified for battle or storage.

“Ah,” Itama said and then laughed. “He designed the seal for that himself.”

That made Izuna pause mid-step. “He did _what_?” he demanded. Itama just shrugged.

“One of the gifts Hashi-nii and Mito—she’s the Uzumaki princess, Hashi-nii’s betrothed— exchanged during the initial phase of the negotiations was a beginner’s guide to the seals. Unfortunately, he has never had a head for the more complex theories, so he gave it to Tobi-nii instead.”

Itama took a sharp turn right by the next corner and hopped onto an overhang of the nearest building to sit down on. “And then he read it three times within the week, got bored, and started implementing them, and eventually moved on to try his hands on experimenting with them. By the time Mito gave Hashi-nii an advanced version of the first book, Tobi-nii had already learned all it had to teach and more.”

It did not make any more sense to Izuna. “But that seemed to… mundane.”

“Maybe, but it is useful,” Itama said. “When Hashi-nii sent the design as part of his next courting gift, the Uzumaki were rather impressed. They had a seal for a similar purpose but as it was not included in their books…”

Izuna could believe it. He wasn’t familiar with seal theory but could imagine it took more trial and error than instant success. The explosive seals the Uchiha had working for them were carefully taught and often ready-made by those who had the steadiest hands and were least prone to spouts of terror and temper.

He watched Itama lean back, head going through the wall. Almost instantly he pulled back, making a face. “Eiji’s not sick,” he said shortly. “We need to see the roster.”

“Not sick?”

Itama wrinkled his nose as he hopped down. “Just horny.”

Ah.

Izuna glanced at the building and then fell into step with his fellow ghost. “What about the tour?”

The way the kid immediately went from disgusted to happy could have made Izuna’s head spin had he not been familiar with the temper he and his clansmen were famous for. Or the stupid tree man.

“We can start with that! We’ll need to go to the other end anyway. So, this is the main market street…”


	4. Not in vain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if you got double e-mail notification on the chapter. Ao3 made posting a nightmare this time around. Hope you enjoy the chapter anyhow!

“You’ll be careful, won’t you?”

Tobirama let out a huff that did not sound as annoyed as his severe expression implied. Izuna had heard it enough times already—often due to something the weird tree had done, just like now—to know that a truly pissed-off Tobirama barely made a sound; he became the ghost he looked like. When he made a sound, whether small or loud, scoff or yell, there was still time to defuse the situation without murder happening.

Gods. Three days haunting him and he was already humanising his nemesis. If he wasn’t already dead, he would have begged someone to off him for the sheer gall he had to claim the White Demon was _human_ of all things.

“I will, brother,” Tobirama said, tying his sword to his back. A thing of beauty, it was. The sword, not—argh. Izuna let his head fall back with a groan. He refused to look at Itama whose eyes he could feel bore into him. “I trust you’ll inform Touka? I wasn’t able to catch her this morning when she came back.”

“Sure.” Hashirama fell quiet and Izuna opened his eyes just in time to see him smile softly. He stepped forward and hugged the white fluff that Tobirama had chosen not to wear this time around. The man had not put on any of the noticeable Senju armour nor other pieces that could have been identified as his, choosing to clad himself in dark, earthy tones and light armour that would enhance his speed. This way he looked more like a Hatake than a Senju, Izuna noted.

Hashirama shifted the fur onto his other arm and brushed Tobirama’s hair off his forehead. It was still so strange to see him without the happuri for the lone Uchiha. “It’s been a while since you took a courier mission.”

Itama grimaced and Tobirama glanced at him, making Izuna follow his lead. “There is a time and place for everything,” he said finally. “While I am not fond of the idea, needs must.”

“Ever the pragmatic.”

“ _Someone_ has to be.”

Hashirama beamed. He looked around and then said into thin air, “Watch over him, Ita-chan.”

“I will,” Itama said, standing nowhere near Hashirama’s gaze, the words which Tobirama echoed. He finished strapping himself and jumped up once, all in place.

“We will be off then. Expect us back in two days.”

The mission Itama had decided on after his bout of spying was one where the Senju needed to make contact with a merchant from the Land of Rivers before he finished his trip to the coast, somewhat following Izuna and Mika’s trail, and thus out of their reach. It was more about them making a new contact than trying to acquire anything but Izuna still automatically filed the information away as if to use later. As if he could.

He hit his head on the wall again. It didn’t even have the decency to hurt.

“Take care!”

***

They arrived in the no man’s land between the Senju and the Uchiha borders around the time Tobirama had indicated in his message. It had been delivered by one of their messenger hawks, instructed to leave it to Madara and then fly away immediately. Neither of the Senju were willing to sacrifice one of the only birds they had managed to purchase. Overall, the clan did not seem to have the Uchiha’s skill in taming and training the birds.

 _Ha_.

At least there was some justice left in the world as Izuna still had not managed to grasp Itama’s skill in floating, the little brat bouncing in the air just to spite him. Despite knowing he did not weigh a thing he was not able to lift himself except for a brief second. Two days and _no_ progress. Izuna was no Madara but he was a _damn_ good shinobi, damn it!

Giving up for the moment, Izuna slouched down half a dozen feet from where Tobirama was crouched. The Senju’s eyes were closed but Izuna imagined he saw—felt—more than the meagre little things his sight could pick up. Izuna himself couldn’t figure out if there was much anything special in the area. He let his thoughts wander, taking note of the clearing he had once busted in with his father to interrupt the illicit meetings between his brother and the tree lover.

They had picked the spot because, if there was one Hashirama would choose, it would have been that; had gone as far as forging the message to look like Hashirama himself had sent it, filled the little space the stone had to carve anyway. Apparently Tobirama had practice with making official documents look like Hashirama had written them, stemming from the time when, as Itama told him, Butsuma’s death had driven the two brothers into overworked hell.

Izuna remembered the time well. The Senju clan head had fallen before his father had and the Uchiha had ruthlessly taken advantage of the power imbalance. At the time they had wondered why the clan had not crumbled under their assaults. The Uchiha had bet it on the mokuton, cursing the fool who had inherited it, but from what Izuna had found out it was more about the cooperation between the two—three—remaining main house members and their closest cousin than anything else.

They had all the reason to want the Uchiha gone just as the Uchiha had attempted to erase the Senju from the face of the earth. So why—

“Why did you agree so quickly?” he asked, refusing to lower his eyes from the sky. Itama rolled over him, still being a show-off, and he turned his face away to stare at the river instead.

“Whatever Zetsu wants with Madara will not spell any good,” Tobirama replied, his voice annoyingly calm and deep as he immediately picked on Izuna’s meaning. It reminded Izuna of the Naka. “Even if we never have the peace Hashirama dreams of, I would rather have a known entity as the enemy than someone like Zetsu.”

The tree man was right. His brother was nothing but pragmatic. But there was one thing about the statement that twisted Izuna’s insides. Madara will not stay ‘known’ for long if he goes off the deep end due to Izuna’s, admittedly, hasty decision. He partly regretted it, wondering if things had been different, better, had he not killed himself. Perhaps he could have escaped, perhaps even with Mika in tow.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Izuna had never imagined him to be the one denying the truth but here he was, still having difficulties accepting the present. He was the voice of reason to Madara’s sometimes hopeless dreaming… and, for once, Izuna hoped Madara had not lost that side of him. The three of them had argued over the type of message to send to him—they only knew Hashirama and Madara used the skipping stones as children but, to their knowledge, not through messaging. At least Izuna could not recall any messages sent between the two, paper or otherwise, and neither did Itama nor Tobirama. They did attempt to craft a short, concise one with a subtle note of Hashirama’s flair, but whether Madara would accept it…

Izuna had watched the bird leave, wishing he could be leaving with it. His brother had to be frantic that neither Izuna nor Mika had returned from their mission. Their enemy had probably already inferred that Izuna had not made it to his side. His rage—the burning, little black thing—had written a mantra he echoed when his thoughts took hold of him:

Let them fall into false sense of security. Let them slowly make mistakes that Izuna could exploit. Let them dig their own graves and _die_.

“So why don’t you run courier missions?” Izuna asked out loud to drown his spite and hate. He needed a clear head for when Madara arrived because, for Amaterasu’s sake, his brother would not be able to keep his calm. “Are they too below your status?” Even Izuna ran a few a year though they were more often with sensitive information for his fledging spy network. Damn, all that effort gone to the wolves too. Who could even replace him? Hikaku? No, not him. Reina? Setsuko? Mmm… No.

Mika.

It had to be Mika. Now Izuna truly _had_ to try his best to rescue her, as if he didn’t have enough reason to do so already.

As he was lost in his thoughts, he almost did not register the lengthened silence. He did, however, hear no forthcoming answer so he turned his head to stare at the grim looks on the Senjus’ faces.

“What?” he asked.

“It’s your choice,” Tobirama told Itama before he settled back into his crouch, eyes sliding close again. Itama sighed and flopped down on the grass.

“It’s brother’s attempt to be kind to me,” he said bluntly. “I was killed on a courier mission.”

Izuna winced, replying lamely with an, “Oh.”

“By the Uchiha.”

“…Oh.”

The silence stretched and Izuna avoided looking at Itama though he couldn’t avoid the knowledge that he had been killed when he was _eight_. Izuna didn’t exactly know how old Itama would be today but he couldn’t be too much younger than them, a few years at most. His father, unlike Madara, had not flinched from using even the more reprehensible tactics to gain the upper hand. It was the reason Madara continued to butt heads with the elders who were mostly from Tajima’s generation, some even from their grandfather’s.

But it was one thing to know that such things had been done behind the scenes. To see the proof…

“I am not asking for an apology.”

This time Izuna’s head snapped back, staring at his fellow ghost as he rolled to his side and pushed to sit up. Itama frowned deep, suddenly resembling Tobirama so much Izuna had to blink to make sure he wasn’t seeing double. “I am not happy about it, naturally. It _sucks_ being dead. But there are worse things. Hashi-nii changed the policy immediately after our father died so we managed to save at least other people’s little brothers. Your brother made the same choice. It…” Itama rolled his shoulders and clenched his hands.

“It brought a lot of good. My death. I don’t like it, but it wasn’t in vain. So we won’t let yours be in vain either. There is a reason we stay behind; there has to be. We are here to stay so we just… need to live to the fullest even with the challenges we have. It’s not nice and it’s not pretty. But it’s the only life we have, so… so…”

Itama continued to ramble but Izuna couldn’t hear him anymore.

 _There has to be_.

Izuna shivered. Instead of focusing on Itama, he turned to Tobirama and found the man watching him. The scowl was present again, brows furrowed, but—perhaps it was the lighting, the missing happuri—his glare was not the one Izuna had grown used to on the battlefield. The edge of it was dulled, as if the blade had been in disuse and decayed over time.

And then Izuna knew.

_There has to be._

“He is not coming, is he?” Izuna asked quietly, his gaze never leaving Tobirama, Itama’s rambles dying in the background. Tobirama only stood up.

“We are leaving.”

_There has to be._

Then what use was he?

***

The more distance they put between them and the Naka river, the more Izuna felt his heart had been left behind. Yet their mission waited for no one and thus the clearing was but a memory of another farewell.

“Do you think Zetsu intercepted the message?” Itama asked as he jumped alongside Tobirama, moving like a shinobi for once. Izuna was just a few feet behind them, following them, though more often than not his gaze was directed at where their steps left no traces.

“It is a possibility,” Tobirama said, pushing chakra to the sole of his shoes and springing forward. “But I doubt it. The hawk returned without any harm done to it.”

“They could have learned from last time.”

“They shouldn’t even know about last time,” Tobirama replied. He paused on the next branch, glancing from the sun to the mountains far, far in the distance, and corrected his direction slightly to the left. “And why would the Senju contact the Uchiha? Hashirama is more affable in person, a weapon which he knows himself, and we have sent many missives in that direction to our trade partners without being challenged. Why would they single out this one now?”

“I don’t know, because of Izuna?”

“With our history?” Itama shrugged but Tobirama merely shook his head. “No. Zetsu has no reason to think we are onto him, especially with it looking like the hawk was just carrying a rat from long distance. Unless you found signs of them nearby?”

“You know I would have told you if I had.”

“This Zetsu,” Izuna interrupted, decidedly locking his feelings for later, jumping forward to run closer to them. “You claimed he hasn’t been able to worm himself into the Senju business?”

He had gotten the highlights from Itama when they had patrolled the Senju compound and planned the excursion with Tobirama. There was, apparently, a man and a clan—possibly related—attempting to undermine the Senju—and now the Uchiha—for purposes they had not been able to confirm yet. The brothers had some outlandish ideas about it that Izuna couldn’t help but snort at. Itama had grudgingly admitted that they had been trying to figure things out for years, since about the time Tobirama and Izuna made their debut on the battlefield. Unfortunately, they mostly knew of his manipulation tactics, a little of the clan’s skills that Izuna had confirmed, and the likeness of Zetsu: dark skin, green hair, yellow eyes, pretty much the complete opposite of the clan itself. Izuna knew that he was still kept in the dark in some regards but with the shadows dancing over their faces he had not pried.

Yet.

“Itama would have sniffed him out if he had.” The younger Senju practically glowed under the praise. Izuna inclined his head. A ghost was a very effective spy and a guardian.

“I don’t like to think he’d be able to get an in within the Uchiha either,” he said. “My clan… isn’t very trusting of strangers.” As things were, the sharingan was something very much hunted for; his killers included. “But we aren’t watching for the same signs as you are. They… may have their eyes on us.”

Tobirama’s expression remained neutral. “Which we did account for prior to the message, as you remember.”

“And there were no one there to watch us by the river,” Itama added.

“But they managed to lure Mika and I away,” Izuna argued. “Regardless of if the message got to Madara or not, the fact is that he did not come. There are only a few reasons he would not and I don’t like any of them.”

“You are saying that Zetsu may have influence within your kinsmen.” Tobirama pushed for another spurt of speed. “I am not fond of the sound of that.”

Itama sighed, giving up the pretence of running and turning back to fulltime float. It left Izuna more space to run next to them. “They did try the same with us.”

“I know,” Tobirama said. Izuna peered his surroundings and told them they needed to go further north. Tobirama immediately followed his instructions which, quite frankly, left Izuna in a daze although it did not show in his own actions.

_Never show weakness, son. No one forgives you for it, especially your enemy._

He just… did it, Izuna thought, the idea somehow incomprehensible. Trusted him. Without a question. Him. Despite their years as enemies. Was it really just that simple, just having to be on the same side against a common enemy? The enemy of my enemy and all that rot? There was the certainty that Izuna did not have the chance to plot against him, not with his own people at least, but he could have tried to send him to a trap. Not that he would, he had Madara and his kinsmen to think of, but he could.

Neither of the Senju truly made any sense.

“How did you even discover him?” Izuna asked. If he knew more, perhaps then he would be closer to figuring these people out. “Itama just said that he attempted to get his hands on Hashirama.”

Tobirama’s whole body stiffened and the branch under his feet cracked. Itama did not look any less grim.

“He does have a right to know,” the younger Senju said softly, voice a harsh contrast to the deep lines of his scowl. “He’ll learn about it sooner or later anyway.”

“How long do you think until we arrive to our destination?” Tobirama asked instead of answering.

Izuna checked their surroundings and compared them to the sun. “Half an hour at our speed.”

“Then we have just enough time.” That said, Tobirama picked up the pace and, with a single sign, cast a genjutsu Izuna recognised as masking his presence. It was one of the stronger ones that required constant upkeep to hold up in case the person was moving.

“Around the time Hashirama was first sent to the battlefield, I was part of our supporting forces,” Tobirama continued without lowering his arm or hand sign. “I am not as talented at healing as my brother but even then I knew the basics and was thus one of the best options to stay to care for the wounded so they could return to the field in case of emergency. From my understanding, you have a similar set-up.”

The Uchiha did, though theirs was more focused on first aid and long-distance genjutsu, so Izuna inclined his head. It seemed to satisfy Tobirama enough as he went on to add that, “Just before I was to take part in the battles, Itama came to me. He had seen a strange man watching our fight and came to alert me about a possible ambush. I slipped away and followed him, only to find him. Zetsu.”

Itama floated downwards, his expression darkening. Izuna glanced at him but kept his attention on his rival who wasn’t finished yet.

“He was speaking to someone, but I could not sense anyone else present. Even he was somewhat difficult to locate, what with his presence feeling strangely muted, unlike most living. He kept mentioning the name ‘Kaguya’ which we later found was the name of the clan of those ‘bone men’ as you call them. For some reason, though, it seemed like he was speaking to a person, though, and not a collective.”

“He looked—looks—like a shadow,” Itama added and it checked out with what they had already told him. “I almost didn’t see him then either. It’s likely that he had been observing us for longer than that.”

Izuna absorbed the information he was fed, mulling it over. “He said something that upset you.”

“He did,” Tobirama agreed. His voice gained a sharp, bitter edge. “We found out that it was he who killed Kawarama, our youngest brother.”

Izuna’s eyes widened in shock. “What?!” he blurted out.

“Kawarama had been missing for two days before we found him,” Tobirama said, lines deepening on his face. “We did not know who killed him unlike later when the Uchiha killed Itama. There had been no signs of weapons used on him, only strange little dots of dried blood that looked like they were made by needles… or insects. We first thought it had been the Aburame but we could not confirm that. Then we learned about the Hagoromo and suspected them.”

“Known allies of the Uchiha,” Izuna murmured.

Itama let out a sigh. “Kawa had a mission,” he said. “He was a prodigy, similar to Tobi-nii, but more focused on the battlefield. Father… I think he sometimes forgot Kawa wasn’t as old and advanced as…” his voice trailed off, upset.

“It was after Hashirama awakened his mokuton,” Tobirama continued when Itama didn’t, changing the course slightly to the right, his hand still held up. They were getting closer. “It was supposed to be his mission but the awakening messed with his chakra control enough that he couldn’t do it. Father chose Kawarama instead.”

Having never met the child, Izuna couldn’t really say he was sad to hear about his demise. He was, however, empathising with losing a brother. “And he was killed.”

“Because Zetsu wanted his hands on the mokuton.” Before the surprise could set in, Tobirama added, “We found out that fateful day near the battle that he had been trying to get mokuton to… we don’t exactly know for what but it involves Kaguya; the person, not the clan.”

“You were serious then when you suggested…”

“That we suspect he’s trying to resurrect someone?” Itama piped up. “Mokuton is about the living; it’s the most logical conclusion.” He shrugged. “We are near there, aren’t we?”

Tobirama nodded. “We should be.”

“I’ll scout.” Itama bounced in the air, speeding off. Tobirama jumped once, paused in his step when he landed, and closed his eyes. Izuna wondered if that helped sensing around him, standing still.

But something didn’t make sense with the explanation. “And he just admitted to killing him? It sounds more like a villain from a fable than anything else.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Tobirama snorted quietly. His voice had lowered enough that Izuna had to move closer to hear everything. “But he did say he promised he would deliver a mokuton user to her and would not fail again.”

Which is basically admitting his guilt if the right people heard that, which they had. “You didn’t attack him.”

“I had to make sure he would not get to Hashirama. I couldn’t do that if I was dead.”

“Does he know?”

Tobirama opened his eyes and the look on his face was unreadable. His jaw unclenched slowly and a flash of grief pulled at his brows. He didn’t answer until Itama appeared back within their line of sight, motioning them to follow him, and even then Izuna barely heard the words that left him to stare at Tobirama’s retreating back.

“No. It would break his heart.”


	5. Setting priorities

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! I hope you have all been well <3 I sure am myself, just moved back to my hometown and all, it's been busy but a blast. Hope you enjoy the new chapter too!

Izuna stared at the innocuous spot that for anyone else would be meaningless but for him meant the loss of everything he held dear. It felt both longer and shorter than it actually had been since he last saw it, years and seconds despite the days it actually was. Being unable to sleep led to some dark thoughts though, admittedly, having Itama around kept him from going completely off the edge.

Had he not known the exact place—the image was burned into his mind forever—he might not have realised someone—he—had died there. The grass had a depression on it, the dirt thrown around, but nothing that someone falling down and scrambling up couldn’t have made. He couldn’t even remember if that actually had been a thing he had done in his wounded state. The blood had been washed away and the darker spots could have been just leftover moisture from the rain the night before. All in all, the spot was rather unremarkable.

He had always imagined he would die in a battle, possibly trying to save his brother’s back, surrounded by enemies. He would be able to see his clan mourn him, speak of him in high regard and tell stories of his blaze of glory, and be scolded by Madara for doing that, but still be there to support him up until he passed away himself, hopefully from old age. Childish fancy, he now knew it had been, but rarely does a shinobi live a life to its fullest. Madara, being the most powerful Uchiha in generations, possibly since Indra himself, had the chance to do that. Not Izuna.

The only thing he got right was that he had died before his brother.

“Izuna?”

He was woken from his thoughts by a hand pressing on his arm and turned to see Itama stare at him with a look of concern. He tried for a weak smile but even he knew it was barely an echo of what once had been.

“Did you find anything?” he asked, disregarding the unspoken question. Itama gave him another knowing look but let him.

“Brother found tracks.”

Without giving his deathbed another look, Izuna started marching over to where Tobirama was grouched over, fingers splayed over the ground without touching. “Tracks?” he called out.

“Someone was carried,” Tobirama replied. His eyes flitted over the clearing and back to the imprints and Izuna could almost hear the cogs turn inside his head. “But only one. You had a partner, you said?”

“Yeah.” Izuna shifted, moving to inspect the trail more closely. “She alive?”

“Unable to confirm that,” came the grunted answer. “The steps are uniform except for ones the slightest bit deeper. But assuming your death was unintended and they wanted to keep your body intact, the only way to do so against decay is to seal it away. You cannot seal away living beings.” That was something, at least. Tobirama did one last sweep with his hand and then pointed upwards to the canopy. “That also discounts the theory that she was aligned with them unless they tried to keep up an image to an invisible audience.”

Say _what now_?

“The prints lead up to the trees, going back to where you said you arrived from,” Tobirama continued as if he hadn’t just insulted one of Izuna’s closest cousins. When Izuna had suggested there may have been outside influence at work, he had not meant _her_. Izuna found Tobirama glancing at him and, when Izuna raised his brows to ask what his problem was, he said, “We may have finally found their stronghold. Thank you.”

Izuna gaped before he started spluttering. “What?!” he blurted out. The scowl was instantly back on the Senju’s face.

“Nothing.”

“That was not _nothing_!” Izuna immediately argued back. The man went from hot to cold quicker than _Madara_ sometimes! “That was—”

“ _Nothing_.”

“ _Gratitude_ ,” Itama piped up, breaking the fight before it could start. “It is called gratitude. Both of you.”

“I know what that is!” Izuna insisted but the little shit the child was replied with a, “Then why did you ask?”

Tobirama pinched the skin of the bridge of his nose and stood up. “We don’t have time to waste. It is at least half a day’s trip to the merchant and I promised we would be back within two days.”

“We _are_ going to follow the tracks, aren’t we?” Izuna demanded. They did not make the trip here for nothing, right?

Tobirama scoffed. “Obviously. Which _is_ why we need to start going.”

Izuna did not need to be told twice. He jumped to the branches, examining for cracks and breaks that hasty feet often left. Tobirama was right because of course he was; they _had_ gone back the same way they had arrived. “Then what are we waiting for?”

The look Tobirama gave him was utterly unimpressed but both he and Itama jumped after him and then they were off. They had to split frequently and convene to debate directions but with Itama and Izuna’s experience and Tobirama’s analytical mind they managed to follow the tracks they had deemed the correct ones. In case they weren’t they had marked the other trails but Izuna was confident. These ones had veered into the direction where the enemy’s reinforcements had come which had sent him and Mika scrambling towards the Senju territory.

Then, just as the day was turning to night, the tracks suddenly multiplied by too many to count and disappeared into thin air. Immediately after that Tobirama activated the same hand sign from earlier, disguising his presence as best as he could.

Izuna and Itama jumped around, able to walk over the prints without messing them up, but there was nothing to be found. Tobirama crouched on a nearby branch that more a stump, one hand on the trunk for balance. He had his eyes closed again and it _definitely_ was a sensor thing by now.

“I can feel little to nothing,” he whispered after he motioned for them to come closer and Izuna and Itama returned to his side. “Everything is muted, very similar to how it was when we saw _him_.”

“We found them?” Itama murmured back just as quietly, the tense atmosphere getting to him. “We… did we really find them?” After all this time, was left unsaid but it echoed in the air around them.

“Here’s what we are going to do.” Tobirama shifted on the stump to a more comfortable position. “Itama, you are going to keep scouting around the area. I cannot make out any presences nearby and everything forward is merely a blur—”

“How did you not recognise the feeling earlier?” Izuna interrupted. Tobirama huffed in response.

“Because from further away sensing gets more unfocused unless you narrow down on a specific presence,” he still replied and, Izuna had to admit, it did make sense. Trying to take in everything all the time must be exhausting. “Besides, imitating the surrounding area is not that hard if you know your seals and unless you stumble on them it can be difficult to separate the two. But _what I was trying to say_ —” he shot Izuna a look who only lifted his hands in mock surrender in reply, “—Itama, you are going to look around. Don’t go too far in, look for any defences you can find around the barrier. You know how to identify seals, I’ve taught you enough to know where to look for them. I can’t investigate myself in case there is a failsafe in place; I do not want to alert them of my presence. We don’t want to lose them again.

“Izuna, you are going to look further past the seals.”

Izuna instantly straightened up. He was—

“You don’t have the same training Itama has for spotting hidden defences,” Tobirama continued bluntly and Izuna bristled. How _dare_ he suggest— “And certainly not for what I need looked for. Which is why you are going in and going to find out all you can about their forces. Numbers, weapons, possible hideouts, anything and everything you can. Your size and looks make you an excellent spy and if the Uchiha did not utilise you as such they are all idiots.”

“At least they are not all tree fuckers,” Izuna ground out behind his teeth. He was not wrong though; Izuna was—had been—their resident infiltrator specialist. “I will let it slide this time and _this time only_. You are not the boss of me and _never_ will be. If I let anyone give me orders, it will be Madara and Madara only and _certainly_ not _you_.”

Tobirama stared him down but Izuna did _not_ back down. Itama tried to cough to gather their attention but, this time, his distraction tactics did not work. Izuna gritted his teeth, baring them in challenge. Tobirama’s expression darkened but then his shoulders fell and the glare retreated behind a neutral mask.

“Understood.”

Izuna nodded once sharply. “Thirty minutes?”

“At maximum.”

“Got it.”

Izuna broke their staring contest and his small victory—but still a victory—sent a thrill down his back as he left them behind. He had dug his feet in the ground and _won_ , fair and square. It felt… it felt good. Like he had just reclaimed just a little of what he had lost.

He may be a ghost, he may be stuck with Senju Tobirama of all people and whatever that meant, but he was still Uchiha Izuna. He was still him and not a washed-out version of himself. He would not be walked over by _anyone_.

And it was time he made sure it stayed that way.

Not too long after running at his highest speed he came across a wall. With the trees cut around it, it was still enough to be a deterrent, easily defendable even without making it tall enough to be a hindrance to the forces. There had been a few basic traps set out from what he had seen on the way there but nothing dangerous.

Not to him, however.

Izuna ran over the wall and made a note of the guards; pairs of the similar looking bone men that had hunted him down, far enough from each other that they were not visible to the next pair. No other modes of protections to be seen. The security was lax. It was clear they did not expect anyone to find them; were they so confident in their seals, their strength? Looking around from the top, running the formation of buildings in his head, he concluded they had indeed found out their compound. The men formed a clan, just as the Senju had said. The foundation of the buildings, as he noted after jumping down and flitting around the now empty streets, was similar to one of the clans from the mountains he had visited as a child. As it was, it was built against a rock formation and Izuna made the decision to head there himself. The outer circle was clearly to shield whatever buildings were built by the rock… or underneath it.

Izuna took note of the guard positions inside the walls but only a few were strapped with actual weapons. Knowing what he did about the clan, Izuna couldn’t say he was all that surprised. They _were_ living weapons, more so than a regular shinobi. Unnatural bastards. Because most of the people had gone inside already he couldn’t gauge the size of the clan but he would put them as smaller than the Uchiha or the Senju due to the size of the compound. It did not necessarily mean they wouldn’t be a problem should they attack; the Nara was a relatively small clan, but no one wanted to attack _those_ freaks.

When he arrived closer to the rock, he could start feeling a slight tugging sensation. It was not as forceful as when it had sent him sprawling but he instantly knew he was starting to be at the limits of his distance. Annoyance grew inside him, the knowledge he was little more than a dog on a leash right now. He frowned, tilting his head back to stare in Tobirama’s direction in consideration.

He jumped forward a few steps. The sensation was still there, growing just a little stronger.

Huh. He had not felt that before. He must have missed the signs three days ago. Itama must have forgotten to mention this… or Izuna had not listened. It could be either or, depending on the time of day, the alignment of stars…

Izuna snorted to himself. It was unfortunate that no one was there to appreciate his wit. He turned back to the building in front of him, the back of which was the actual rock, looking sturdier than the rest which only made Izuna surer of his intuition. It would be here where he would find the most answers; not in the streets or the houses circling, but here. It was built more like a fortress than the rest that were clearly collateral material.

He peered inside the windows but there was no light except the one coming from behind him. He stared at the glass with his hand raised. He intellectually knew he could ignore the limitations he had as a human but… he pressed against the pane. It did not budge. Frowning he worried his lip, trying to focus on Itama’s directions.

 _You need to let go of the idea you are still there,_ he could remember the child saying. _Because we are on a different plane of existence as Tobi-nii put it. Imagine yourself as… let’s say a sunray or a gust of wind for a lack of a better word. They slip through all the cracks they can and we do the same. Or, or a genjutsu! That might work better. Because that’s basically what we are, even if we move and think independently. Just an illusion._

The kid was seriously depressing. Izuna closed his eyes. Try as he might he was not able to make himself believe he wasn’t there. He was. He was there and he was not giving up his right to be. But the world around him—

It could go. He would have nothing standing in his way. He had already decided, hadn’t he? He would see Madara again. He would save Mika. He would avenge his death and ensure these people would hurt the Uchiha again. He would not give up.

Everything else could go to hell.

He felt the wall give and he stepped through. Opening his eyes he could see a clean sitting room and a door to the long hallway. He followed it, peeking into the rooms and finding some bone men sleeping and working in low light. He took note of the documents and projects though not much made sense. The word Kaguya came up a few times and Izuna found confirmation that the clan had adopted the same name the person, woman apparently, had. The notes, however, made it seem like she was still alive and only locked away. Tobirama would appreciate the information.

Izuna wrinkled his nose. Ugh. Having to rely on the Senju was galling. He wasn’t as bad as the Demon had seemed from the other side of the battlefield but Izuna still didn’t have to like him. At least Itama was somewhat more manageable or trying to be. Tobirama though? He was still unapologetically himself. Not that Izuna was bothering to keep a front either, they both had seen each other at their worst. The man was annoyingly brilliant, emphasis on _annoying_.

Gah.

Izuna left the bone man to his work, unable to find more things to snoop without the ability to move or touch objects. The tugging sensation grew stronger and Izuna was pretty sure he was nearing his limits the deeper he made his way inside the house. It felt larger, longer, than it had seemed from outside. As it got progressively darker Izuna mused he was probably at least partly inside the rock. Had they carved it or was it a cave? When he finally reached the end of the corridor it was… quite a let-down. Just a large room that was more like a record room or a library than anything else. For once he was willing to grab a book and study its contents and he couldn’t even do that. Life just wasn’t fair like that.

He scowled and retraced his steps. He had to have missed something. This was the most secure building; if they kept prisoners alive, they had to be here. Or Izuna’s body. They had wanted his eyes; they probably wouldn’t give up trying to figure out how to beat the genetic lock on them. What a futile effort. There _had_ been a reason why Izuna had forced himself to deactivate his sharingan. No one were getting their dirty hands on them.

He wandered around long enough to know that his time was running out. The second floor was just more of the same and the third one was mainly for defence purposes, holding the most guard posts. They were more vigilant than the rest and Izuna itched to scare them out of their hiding spots. Ugh, how he hated them.

Izuna was making his way down again when he heard it.

“—gone. I will find the key, I promise, Kaguya-sama.”

He jumped down the stairs and rushed towards the voice. It didn’t take him long before he followed the voice to an innocuous dining room he had given just a cursory look and dismissed as nothing special but where the table and the tatami mat had now been moved. Growling in annoyance, he quickly set to jump down the hole and follow the voice he could echo from below. It was dark, very much so, but the flickering candlelight deeper in meant he could see where his prey was going. He quickened his steps.

“—the Uchiha spare did not make it to Madara. He seems none the wiser of his fate, distraught as he is. The only thing we lost was the extra set of eyes, yes, that’s right. That’s all we lost—”

Izuna grit his teeth. He would show them—

“—resisting, but her resolve is weakening. Should we get her son, we can control her. She will come willingly, I will make sure of it—”

Izuna’s eyes flew wide when the waning light hit the woman in the cells carved in stone. She was shackled to the wall, dried blood darkening her skin and the rags on her, her armour already removed. Her leg was bent unnaturally and her face looked swollen from where Izuna was looking. She was unconscious, neck twisting with the weight of her head.

She looked bad.

“Mika,” Izuna murmured. The broken doll in front of him could not be his cousin, no matter how much she resembled her. His beautiful, strong cousin never gave up, never—

A particularly strong tug sent him sprawling on the floor. The light disappeared further down the corridor, taking its refuge with it, the whispered plans echoing into garbled mess. Izuna found himself being dragged away from Mika, his fingers finding no purchase he could use to slow his retreat.

“I will come for you!” he vowed and spat the pledge into the darkness that had taken hold of the underground. “Just you wait, I will get you out of here!”

His bit said, Izuna scrambled up and took off retracing his steps, unwilling to see if Tobirama could drag him through stone. He ran a different route out and mentally compared it to the other side of the compound, finding no surprises there. The overconfident idiots.

As he flew past the wall following the tug towards Tobirama and flitted between the trees, he sent an apology towards where the moon was peeking through the clouds to Madara.

“You just got bumped second on my priority list,” he said and hoped the winds would somehow manage to convey his feelings to his brother despite how impossible it was. There was hope his goals would align but, in case they didn’t—

“Sorry. I have to make sure Kagami is fine first.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to know what you thought if you have the time to spare :)
> 
> Find me on [tumblr](https://hali-ra.tumblr.com/).


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